With disturbing before and after photos of drug users’ faces, a new anti-drug campaign may succeed where others have failed, grabbing teens’ attentions by appealing to their vanity.

The pairs of mug shots, which graphically display the damage drugs can do to the face, were collected by the sheriff’s office in Multnomah County, Ore.

Faces that were normal — even attractive — in initial photos, shot when addicts were first arrested, metamorphose over years, and sometimes just months, into gaunt, pitted, even toothless wrecks.

The photos are part of a 48-minute documentary called “From Drugs to Mugs,” created by Deputy Bret King. King hopes that the documentary, which is available on a DVD along with a CD of mug shots, will help scare kids straight by showing them concrete evidence of damage that can occur within months from using meth, heroin or cocaine.

“The thinking is that this will give kids a tangible image of what can happen if they get involved in using hard drugs,” King says. “We did want to appeal to their sense of vanity.”

King understands the power of that teen vanity. “I remember in high school you had to have the right clothes, the right shoes, the right look,” he says.

Perhaps the most stunning feature of the photos is how quickly the face is damaged.

That speed isn’t surprising to addiction experts.

Meth, for example, can cause small blood vessels around the face to constrict, says A. Thomas McLellan, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Solutions at the University of Pennsylvania.

“So consequently, the gums shrink as they do in old age,” says McLellan, also former deputy director of the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy. “The teeth that remain can become discolored and black.”

Hard-partying wrecks your looks. So what's up with Charlie Sheen?

Both meth and heroin are often cut with sugar, McLellan explains. “And you get acne from oily or sweet things, so if you’re injecting the sugar into your veins it’s even more direct,” he adds.

Other impurities can cause lumpy cysts on the face and other areas of the body, such as the armpits and groin, McLellan says.

The gaunt look on many of the addicts can be the result of poor nutrition and lack of sleep, says Dr. Larissa Mooney, an addiction psychiatrist and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles.

As for the facial sores: Sometimes meth users will hallucinate and get the sensation that there are bugs crawling under their skin, Mooney says. Trying to get relief, they’ll sometimes pick at their skin until there are open sores.

Experts can’t say whether the program will work, but Mooney and McLellan are hopeful.

“The video is trying to tap into something that is important to young people,” Mooney says. “It’s less abstract than telling someone they’ll get lung cancer many years down the line. This is something you can actually see right now.”

McLellan agrees that the short time to facial devastation may have a big impact on kids. “Some of these photos show changes in less than six months,” he says. “This is the kind of time frame kids understand."

I like the idea of showing children what might become of them if they use certain substances as long as they tell those children that using those substances is a personal choice and they are free to be idiots as long as they don't infringe on anyone's rights.

The thing about any "don't do drugs" message is, it's tainted by all those that came before that were bullshit, and all the one's told to any given person before that were bullshit. Thing is, if I were my teenage self, and one of the old school members on this board showed me this stuff, it would mean a hell of alot more to me than if the message came from school or parents, since I wouldn't trust their motives, or honesty. You can't tell someone shit if they don't have reason to trust you.

Ganja May Live Up To Be The Elixir of Life
The study's results appearing in the 'Journal of Clinical Investigation' have actually given a fillip to the traditional and mythological view that associates the addictive weed in some ways with immortality.

Study Turns Pot Wisdom on Head
It seems marijuana could be good for your brain. Research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in a highly potent form. Researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons in rats' hippocampuses.

Hemp For Victory! (Over Aging)
While much has been made of the nutritional value of hemp in the past few years, Johnson, a Saskatchewan hemp farmer and chief technical officer of Canada’s Lifespan Pharma, Inc., believes that the plant has rare properties that can dramatically increase the lifespan of humans. His work with Hemp for Horses is the first step in providing a scientific basis for eventual human clinical trials.

Gen.3 [22] And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.

Toke-A-Day May Keep Old Memory Functioning
The more research they do, the more evidence Ohio State University scientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells.

Hippies condemned speed in 1967 and no one listened. Any time over zealous or profiteers get all hysterical I find its time for a closer look at their motives. "Meth" is a dangerous substance to be sure, but according to the US DEA it is not as dangerous as Hemp clothing. A schedule #1 narcotic while "meth " is #2.

I guess the Military doesn't agree with the assessment of your anti group either. Giving go go pills to pilots. Oh ya several Canadians became collateral damage by them. Army, Navy and Marines all getting white powder crank. Eek, college students since its invention have been cramming for midterms popping white crosses.

Like your fresh veggies? What about the all night truckers staying alert with coast to coast turnarounds, black beauties and dexies. Doctors doing 36 hour shifts, and cops on stake outs. Then the money made in the fashion industry, keeping those models pencil thin on diet pills of "meth".

Mothers lil pick me ups and ADD and prozak and bennies and amphetimines. The capitalist way of life forces blue collar workers to work 2 shifts, smoking a boat, killing his organs, teeth and brain cells, its the American dream.

meth is called "ICE" and it's a menace and horror to society

Say's who? The same profiteers selling the Ganjawar. It isn't the menace and horror to society when the Air Force is go go bombing infrastructures and Canadians. Or when drug czars were cramming for midterms in nark school. Or when truckers popped them coast to coast to bring fresh pretzels to dumbya. Or the twins selling Coors at the superbowl keeping skinny on diet pills. Are the doctors and nurses working 36 hour shifts a menace and horror to society? ADHD, Ritalin and other "crank" for menacing kids. Cops and white crosses on stake outs for busting Ganjamed patients. Mothers pick me ups in conjunction with the lil helper valiums. Speed sucks, but it doesn't suck anymore now than when the hippies condemned it at the Haight in 1967.

And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites and wine
And you show me a sign
And I'll be willin' to be movin'

Looking good is very important for everyone, especially to the teens. Sometimes it takes a time for us just to make ourselves looking good in the eyes of other people.

I think this new way of telling that using drugs brings you no good. It just don't have effect on the inner body but also on the outer appearance of a person. The crystal meth abuse has effects which includes paranoia, irritability and anxiety. When meth abuse is more severe, it can make the addicted individual violent due to extreme paranoia, suffer from permanent psychosis or be at risk of heart failures or strokes.

I hope that teenagers will think twice of using these substance after they see these pictures.

Looking good is very important...I think this new way ... I hope that teenagers will think twice of using these substance after they see these pictures.

Isn't it terrible that our US DEAth government is handing out meth to kids with ADHD? Or to our young Military kids in traumatic enough situations. Now Unk gives them go go pills. Shooting people and getting shot at may cause you to age. It may also cause paranoia. Where's all the War junkie rehabilitation's. Now with the go go's who knows what shape these young soldiers are in. What if they hallucinate and think Canadians are Iraqi's. I bet its hard to tell from 30,000 feet. Oh well the pilots rarely ever see the damage they do. So happy for these fresh veggies, but I wish the delivery truckers didn't pop so many black beauties. Or those young good looking college students popping white crosses to cram for mid terms. Or if an accident occurs will they take you to the hospital where the resident is working a 36 hour shift popping dexies. Or the cop on stake out buzzing on caffeine pills. Or the cute skinny super model popping diet pills. Or for that extra pick me up Mother goes running for the shelter over.

America is a product of Speed. Maybe paying living wages so parents don't have to both work or one work two shifts needing that artificial stay awake. Speed kills. Speed is as plastic as looking good by means of surgery or chemical cover ups or devices that shape and remove your own identity. Being obese is a health problem. Being fat is not a problem. Being so called "ugly" is an opinion by shallow minded freaks of nature trying to adulterate everything natural into their moneyslut ideas. To sell products. Mostly products to look like TV says. Further stigmatizing those with natural blemishes and awkward body parts. One of the best PSA's I've ever seen about speed was in central Florida of all places. It was a short video about how to do speed. Plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration. They even taught a neck and shoulder exercise and breathing techniques to avoid cracking neck bones like knuckles. No judgment, some advisories on how speed affects the body. But basically a concern for the health of the users.

Don't see many like that when profit and plea bargains provide clients. You run a rehab for profit and come here thinking your helping kids? Remember kids. Plastic Surgery makes you ugly. How about steroids making you old and ugly. Look at Arno's pumping iron arms turn to flab right before your eyes. Peroxide to color hair? Acetone to remove nail polish. Like I said, Speed or any Big Pharma white powder have side effects. Stick with Ganja kid, once you get a diploma and a job and a place where no one will bother you. Until then, read a book, or whatever pad is popular.

Ice... a menace to warm drinks everywhere...

Here and Now

What is the use of planning to be able to eat next week unless I can really enjoy the meals when they come ? If I am so busy planning how to eat next week that I cannot fully enjoy what I am eating now, I will be in the same predicament when next week's meals become "now." If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.~ Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom Of Insecurity